John Steenhuisen:

John Steenhuisen was elected Leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) in November 2020, having previously served as the Interim Leader of the party since November 2019.  He was elected the DA’s Parliamentary Leader of the Official Opposition in the National Assembly in the Parliament of South Africa in November 2019.

He was born in Durban on 25 March 1976 and attended Northwood School.

In 1999 he was elected to the then Durban City Council. At the age of 22, he was one of the youngest councillors in the history of the city. In 2006 he was elected as the Caucus Leader of the Official Opposition, the Democratic Alliance on the eThekwini Council and served on the City’s Executive Committee.

He represented Durban North for 10 years until the 2009 General Election where he was elected Leader of the DA caucus in the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature.  He also served as DA Leader in KZN.

In 2010 he took up a seat in the National Assembly and served as the DA Shadow Minister on Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs (COGTA).

He served as the DA’s Chief Whip in the National Assembly from May 2014 to October 2019.

He is a proud East Coaster and AmaZulu fan.  He is married to Terry Steenhuisen and has three beautiful daughters, Ashleigh, Caroline and Olivia.

He is passionate about South Africa and optimistic about its future.

Greg Mills:

Why do some states thrive, grow their economies and uplift their people, while others, facing similar challenges, slide into low growth, social dysfunction and failure?

After decades of work on the ground in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, bestselling author Greg Mills seeks to provide answers in Rich State, Poor State.

On each continent he traverses, Mills interrogates the how and why. How did Botswana go from being one of the least-developed and poorest nations at independence to enjoying the highest rate of per capita growth of any country in the world? Why has South Africa failed to attain similar heights? How did the Baltic states achieve reforms that have positioned them among the best-performing economies in Europe? How did Vietnam overcome a traumatic past in favour of a rapid and positive development transformation? Why is Mexico the only large developing economy that competes with China in manufacturing?

Drawing from interviews with current and former presidents, prime ministers and key government officials across the globe, as well as research from leading institutions to enrich his fieldwork, Mills contrasts the successes and the failures, and in so doing, seeks to determine a path for the next generation of leaders.

Insightful and inspiring, Rich State, Poor State shows that with better choices, the right policies and the will to implement them, it is entirely possible to travel the road from poverty to prosperity.
 

Dr Greg Mills heads the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation, established in 2005 by the Oppenheimer family to strengthen African economic performance. Before this he was the national director of the SA Institute of International Affairs. He has directed numerous reform projects in Africa and sat on the Danish Africa Commission and the African Development Bank’s high-level panel on fragile states. On the advisory board of the Royal United Services Institute, he is the author of the best-selling books Why Africa Is Poor and Africa’s Third Liberation, and together with President Olusegun Obasanjo, Making Africa Work: A Handbook for Economic Success. His writings have won him the Recht Malan Prize. His latest books, Expensive Poverty and The Ledger: Accounting for Failure in Afghanistan, were published in 2021 and 2022 respectively.